This invention relates in general to online money transfers and, more specifically, to payment authentication for online money transfers.
An ever-increasing amount of commerce is being done online. Unique ways to send money are being devised to ease the flow of money for online transactions. Inherent to online transactions, the parties never meet in person such that the parties enjoy a certain amount of anonymity. Criminals find comfort in this anonymity which is reflected in the fraud statistics for online transactions.
To capitalize upon online commerce, while reducing the fraud risk, new methods of payment authentication have been devised. There are address verification services that check the address provided against the billing address with the credit card company. Modern credit cards have a CVV2 code imprinted on the back or front of the credit card that is not part of the credit card number. Authenticating that the buyer has the proper CCV2 code tends to show the buyer physically has the card. Similarly, some authenticate the customer service number on the credit card.
Some credit cards have an embedded semiconductor chip that can have various features to reduce the risk of fraud. These new cards are called smart cards. A card reader is necessary at the Internet terminal the purchaser is using to take advantage of the smart card feature. In certain countries, the adoption of smart cards is at insignificant levels.
One type of online transaction subject to the above fraud concerns is the sending of money using online payment to fund the transfer. For example, there are services offered by WesternUnion.com™ that allow using a credit/debit card to make money available for pickup at a retail Western Union™ location. As the money can be paid out almost immediately, authentication of the sender and their card is important to reduce the risk of fraud. Once the money is picked-up, the true owner of the card may dispute the charge leaving little chance of recovery.
In the appended figures, similar components and/or features may have the same reference label. Further, various components of the same type may be distinguished by following the reference label by a dash and a second label that distinguishes among the similar components. If only the first reference label is used in the specification, the description is applicable to any one of the similar components having the same first reference label irrespective of the second reference label.